Am I getting this right? Is the defence lawyer effectively saying, "My client is an undomesticated savage so doesn't understand that what he did is wrong". Using a racist slur as grounds for diminished responsibility seems, at best, like a pretty desperate defence. I'm pretty sure that raping someone at knifepoint in Somalia is a criminal act there too. If the story is true then my first thought was this is evidence that there is a least one too many defence lawyers in practice. But that says more about the esteem in which I hold lawyers than anything else. On reflection, the guy has a right to legal representation and maybe this was the best his defence could do for him based on the story he told.
It doesn't look like a defence at all. It looks more like a statement in mitigation before sentencing. Mitigation is often feeble, desperate, and makes no difference to the sentence passed, but all convicts are entitled to try. One does not, of course, expect journalists to understand the difference between a defence and a mitigation.
One is reluctant to blame anyone for what they did or said as a schoolboy, People change and learn as they grow up; most of them tend to become more right-wing as they grow older.
If someone offered you the opportunity to have an EU passport and all the benefits that go with it, would you take it up? I certainly would and i bet a sizeable proportion of the Leave camp would too.
I would agree with this but why is it the case. Knowledge gained from learning through experience shifts people to the right. Or are they being brainwashed by our media ? What, if anything, does this say about those on the left ?
it says to me being left of center is the natural state. life corrupts and makes you protectionist. ever noticed most conflicts have somebody with a beard and or grey hair in the back ground pulling the strings? :Hilarious:
It's not complicated. It's all about what you have at stake. As a young person, you have nothing much at stake. You don't own anything and you're happy to be left-wing as that means you might benefit in any share out. You are also idealistic and can see all that is wrong with the world: people are mean, there is corruption, people lie, it's not fair. As you get older, you have more at risk. Perhaps a house, a well-paying job. Now you become anti-taxation as it means you are going to get poorer, not richer. You become risk adverse because you want to cling on to what you have. You understand that people are mean, people lie and it's not fair but that's OK. You are lying, occasionally being mean, and making the most of things not being fair. You can't win in any case, because if you are well-off but still have left-wing views, you become a "champagne socialist" and everyone expects you to be like Jesus and give away your wealth and live in a shit-hole. Otherwise you are a hypocrite.
you keep reminding me of that old song " you think that you are winning when you are loosing again ",,:Banghead:
Now now gentlemen, let's have a bit of self moderation on behalf of El T, he needs to concentrate on his new Ducati
